


Happy Birthday to Her

by hauntedpanels



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Birthday Party, Gen, Guilt, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Motherhood, One Shot, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 04:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpanels/pseuds/hauntedpanels
Summary: The mind grows accustomed to things, to an order and structure and tradition, and there was at least a small part of her mind that was expecting cake and balloons and gifts and friends. She couldn’t eat cake, she couldn’t imagine where she would find balloons, there was no gift that would satisfy how empty she felt, and she certainly had no friends.When GLaDOS remembers the date of Caroline's birthday, she can't help but feel like she doesn't deserve a celebration. ATLAS and P-body, however, have a different opinion.





	Happy Birthday to Her

**Author's Note:**

> This started as just purely an angst fic but I love motherly GLaDOS and wanted to incorporate that. Also Chell isn't in this fic but there's implied feelings for Chell on GLaDOS's part. Fair warning in case chelldos is not your cup of tea. I just didn't think it was enough to put it in the ship tag because it's very briefly mentioned.

GLaDOS didn’t think it would hurt to check the employee files. They were all dead and it didn’t matter anyway. She insisted to herself she was only going in there for research purposes, although if anyone asked, she wouldn’t be able to give specifics because it simply wasn’t about research. It was a compulsion, but she was just as clueless for what she was trying to achieve as anyone else.

She figured maybe it was almost a form of self harm. She didn’t like to admit it, but she found herself searching more and more to find things that would hurt her, and looking through files upon files of men who had abused her was one way to inflict pain. She couldn’t deny the loneliness she was feeling was becoming more and more heavy and unbearable. She could live with it before, but after everything that happened and everything she remembered, it was something she just couldn’t cope with anymore. It had been months since Chell left and the weight of her loneliness was almost crushing.

All the faces looked so familiar that they all blurred together. In some dissociative daze, she managed to flip through every single personnel file without processing any of the information. None of it sunk in until she found the one file that finally stuck out.

GLaDOS felt her heart drop. There must have been some part of her brain that remembered, that made her look this file up today of all days, because she found herself drawn to the identification next to the photo.

_ Caroline [REDACTED] _

_ Date of hire: 04/24/1953 _

_ Date of termination: N/A _

_ Employee ID: 7140 _

_ Date of birth: 10/28/1932 _

GLaDOS let out a nearly audible gasp as she read the date of birth. That was  _ today.  _ That couldn’t have been a coincidence, that she’d just happen to read through every file and find her own, on her own birthday. She knew she didn’t have a human brain anymore, but a traumatized mind is a traumatized mind and those have funny ways of forgetting and remembering at the same time. Her subconscious knew, even if she didn’t. The mind grows accustomed to things, to an order and structure and tradition, and there was at least a small part of her mind that was expecting cake and balloons and gifts and friends. She couldn’t eat cake, she couldn’t imagine where she would find balloons, there was no gift that would satisfy how empty she felt, and she certainly had no friends.

GLaDOS’s attention was pulled away from the birthday dilemma as she felt a sharp pain shoot through her body. She was going through testing withdrawals. She had spent so much time looking through all those personnel files that she neglected testing.

It didn’t take long to rally ATLAS and P-body and before she knew it, they were headed to the reassembly machine to begin their first test. They were always eager to test, so much that GLaDOS wasn’t sure what to do with all the excitement. It wasn’t anything like Chell, who she was constantly comparing the pair to. They didn’t seem to mind. She brought up Chell either straightforwardly or passively in nearly every test and they would only stop their test to wave at the camera.

* * *

 

“This next test involves deadly lasers,” GLaDOS said plainly as ATLAS and P-body entered the next test chamber. “I don’t think I have to remind you what those do. Good luck.”

P-body shot a look towards their sibling who nodded in return, letting out a soft chirp of encouragement. This test looked even more exciting than the last. It wasn’t just the fact that they were built for testing that made the act more enjoyable. They loved spending time with GLaDOS, even if she didn’t realize it, and testing was one way they knew they could get her approval and interact with her.

The two flew through the test with ease until P-body turned around a corner too quickly, immediately being shot down by turrets.

“Orange, your failure brings back such wonderful memories,” GLaDOS said sadly as P-body ran out of the reassembly machine, promptly returning to the test.

P-body shot a glance over to ATLAS before discreetly gesturing towards the camera. GLaDOS seemed a little more depressed than usual. She almost sounded bored. They both knew GLaDOS was talking about Chell; they remembered the in depth, one-sided conversations she’d have with them about her. Shortly after Chell left, GLaDOS was a wreck, talking nonstop about the test subject, hearing how she was both angry at her and sad about her departure. She even mentioned once that she was in love with her. They both thought it was unusual of her to be so emotionally open, but they were glad she trusted them. They never wanted her to be so sad.

Once the test was finished, they gave each other a high five before trotting off to the reassembly machines again. Usually GLaDOS left a sarcastic remark after they finished, but she said nothing until they almost stepped into the machine.

“Do you know when you two were activated?” she asked.

They shook their heads to say no and chirped.

“It was late May,” she said. “Not too long ago. Do you know why I created you?”

The two bots shook their heads again.

“You were a birthday gift. For a dangerous, facility ruining lunatic. She didn’t like testing,” GLaDOS said. “Insane, right?”

ATLAS and P-body nodded.

“But you two do. So I created you to test in place of her so she could just live here. With me. She wasn’t too excited about my original gift plan. It was a medical experiment. Details aren’t important.”

ATLAS shot P-body a worried glance.

“But she couldn’t even appreciate the thought. Some people are so ungrateful. There are some people out there who don’t get birthday presents at all,” she said sadly.

The two bots both looked at each other. Was today GLaDOS’s birthday? They both thought it was too human a concept for her to even understand, let alone celebrate. They surely didn’t comprehend the importance of birthdays. All they knew was GLaDOS, testing, and each other, and they were perfectly happy with that existence. GLaDOS seemed to favor a more human existence, though, which they never understood. It’s often what they felt separated her from themselves, although they never complained.

“Not that that’s important to me,” she said quickly. “I would  _ never  _ want a birthday party. Even if today was my birthday. Which it isn’t, by the way.”

ATLAS nudged P-body and motioned for them to lean in while he whispered something to them.

“I don’t know what you two are talking about, but I want it to stop. Proceed to the next test chamber.”

* * *

 

GLaDOS shut off the camera feed for a moment to recover. She was overwhelming herself talking about this. She thought it would just be easier if she pretended she never saw that file and just moved forward with her day, but she found it impossible to take her mind off of it. Today felt like a punishment. Chell got a lonely birthday, and now that came back to bite her. She loved her two testing bots but she couldn’t help but draw the parallel. She was testing with somebody else’s birthday gifts on her own birthday.

She remembered the last birthday party she ever had. The last one Caroline ever had. It was an office party, she recalled. Her best friend attempted a surprise party with all her coworkers. All it did was scare Caroline so badly she punched him without thinking. Her friend never minded little things like this, like Caroline’s tendency to be on red alert. Caroline was naturally defensive. She was also cold, sarcastic, witty, and a bit mean-spirited, but she had a soft spot for her friends. She also had the brightest smile. She was smart. She was determined. She would sing little songs to herself in the lab or sing duets with her friend, ignoring Mr. Johnson’s commands to get back to work because she knew she wasn’t really in trouble if she stayed to sing a few more songs. And she would cover her face in embarrassment and laugh after responding to “Surprise!” with a quick punch in the shoulder to the person nearest to her. She had no idea that in a few month’s time, her time would be up. She was enjoying her friends, her coworkers, her birthday cake. How could she have known that one day she’d enter the facility for work and never, ever leave?

GLaDOS flipped through the security cameras until she landed on what she intended her next test for P-body and ATLAS to be, but strangely, they weren’t there.

“Disappointing me again,” she said plainly. “Of course. Sure, take your time on the catwalk. It’s not like we’ve got science to do or anything. I’ll just sit here. By myself. While you two goof off. Without me.” She paused. “I swear I do everything myself around here,” she muttered to herself like a passive aggressive mother, turning her attention to a test she’d begun building earlier that week and working in silence.

The quiet was broken by GLaDOS feeling a portal land on a camera, a bit of static rushing through her head. Then another camera. And another camera. And another. A whole test chamber’s worth.

“Do I even need to remind you both?” she said, annoyed. “Destroy the vital testing apparatus and I destroy the reassembly machine.” She hoped this was P-body and ATLAS and not an invader. Part of her briefly hoped it was Chell, but she put that out of her mind. She knew better than to get her hopes up.

She could feel that whoever it was was making a mess of a test chamber, throwing things around, shooting portals, using lasers to mark up the walls. She quickly tried to find a way to reconnect a camera or recording device of some kind, but was cut short when vision was regained without her having done anything. The camera’s view was blocked by a giant orange optic, but when P-body pulled away, it showcased the test chamber.

ATLAS and P-body jumped up in down in excitement as they pointed towards the big laser engraving on the walls:

_ HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! _

The two had torn apart a test chamber sign to cut out a square with a picture of a cake, which ATLAS ran over to grab and hold up for the camera. Scattered around them was confetti.

GLaDOS was taken aback, but if she was human she would surely be unable to contain a smile. She switched on the audio in the test chamber, surprised it hadn’t occurred to her to do so before, and heard the two bots chirping excitedly. ATLAS even tried to get P-body to join him in singing Happy Birthday.

“This isn’t science,” GLaDOS lightly scolded. “You’re supposed to be testing.”

P-body grabbed the picture of the cake and threw it through a sequence of portals so it would fly out of a raised panel and hit the camera, an attempt at giving GLaDOS a piece of cake.

“You broke the screen,” she said, trying to sound unimpressed. “Seriously, I did tell you both it’s not my birthday. And even if it  _ was  _ my birthday, I didn’t want a party.”

P-body shared a knowing look with ATLAS.

“Fine. You win. Happy birthday to me. Is that what you want to hear? Are you satisfied?”

The two nodded enthusiastically.

GLaDOS sat silently for a moment, lightly humming a birthday song to herself before speaking up again.

“You know,” she began contentedly, “I don’t think I ever let each of you know just how much I love you.”


End file.
